LG took to the stage in NYC today to announce their latest Android smartphone, the G2. Their hope with this phone is to be the most ambitious and exciting handheld on the market today, a phone that learns from the user.

LG believes that innovation requires a combination of technology improvements and empathy. Their product development cycle for their latest phone, according to LG, is enhanced with a focus on consumer feedback. The end result is a new phone called the G2, which tries to embody everything LG has gained from its customer feedback and user trials.

The first thing you’ll notice about the G2 is the new button configuration. The volume rocker sits on the back, just under the camera. This isn’t quite so strange when you think about how most people hold their phones, but when compared to most smartphones this is a significant different. With nothing on the sides of the phone, the G2 is able to achieve a 5.2-inch full HD IPS display with very little bezel around the display. It’s a design that stands out as soon as you see it, without looking awkward or terribly different.

In between the volume buttons is the power button, which bulges just slightly for your finger to rest your finger on. The buttons are also used for quick actions like launching the camera. LG calls this configuration the Rear Key, and there’s not anything quite like it out there right now.

Qualcomm’s Steve Mollenkopf joined LG on stage to discuss their long time relationship, as well as explain the benefits of the Snapdragon 800 processor on the G2. The chipset in the G2, as Mollenkopf explains, is the result of thousands of hours of research and optimization to provide a high performance phone that blows away the competition. We’ve seen the Snapdragon 800 perform incredibly well when not optimized at all, so it will be very interesting to see what LG and Qualcomm have done together.

LG has some big claims in their G2 presentation that they say beats the competition hands down.The camera on the G2 is a 13MP sensor with a sapphire crystal cover and Optical Image Stabilization. The camera promises to do well in low light and doesn’t awkwardly stick out of the phone. LG’s camera software in the past has been crammed full of features in the past, and it looks like their latest phone is more than capable of competing in the smartphone camera arena. The speakers claim to be capable of delivering Hi-Fi, professional quality audio. Their software includes a couple of high quality ringtones made specifically for the phone that try to prove this point.

Finally, LG’s big claim that their new phone will learn from you is explained with their series of in-house developed features. The G2 can be woken up by knocking on the phone, lets you answer the phone when ringing just by picking the phone up, and and automatically start a special entertainment launcher when you plug in headphones. The software can apply context from information in your text messages and allow you to book calendar appointments or search the web from the contents of an SMS.

Guest Mode is another feature, allowing you to set a second profile based on a gesture unlock that allows you to share your phone without sharing your accounts.

LG plans to make the G2 available on the four major US carriers as well as an undefined number of international carriers, something the company has needed to do for quite a while now. The company has certainly put their best foot forward with the G2, but with the fierce competition in the smartphone space right now it will be interesting to see how well this phone actually stands out.